Missing Michigan teen found alive in a field with 37-year-old family friend

Emily Lalinsky, 15, and Robert Messer, 37, were found together Tuesday in a field near 7 Mile Road and Chubb Road in Salem Township northeast of Ann Arbor in Washtenaw County, police said. The two had been missing since Sunday.

Emily Lalinsky, 15Courtesy of the Plymouth Township Police Department

Lieutenant Cal Lauria of the Plymouth Township police department said that Lalinsky is being treated at a local hospital for superficial wounds.

“The male is also being treated, but at a separate hospital,” Lt. Lauria said. “He is also being held in custody.”

Messer and Lalinsky disappeared Sunday after a planned trip to Ann Arbor.

Police believed that Lalinsky was in danger and that Messer, a family friend of nearly a decade, was possibly mentally unstable due to literature he wrote that was found as part of the investigation.

Lisa Schwartz, Lalinsky’s mother, said that Messer had made frequent trips to Ann Arbor with her daughter, and the two enjoyed going to local parks and taking pictures. Schwartz said she met Messer at church and told other media outlets that he was “like a brother to her.”

The intersection in Salem Township, northeast of Ann Arbor, near where Emily Lalinsky, 15, and Robert Messer, 37, were found.Kyle Mattson | The Ann Arbor News

Messer and Lalinsky had left their cell phones at his Salem Township home along with notes explaining their sudden departure.

“We are going today, she and I, because we have to — not because we want to leave you,” Messer wrote. “We are in love and cannot be apart from each other.”

Lalinsky wrote a similar letter, apologizing to her mother specifically for leaving.

“Please don’t ever doubt or forget that you are an amazing and wonderful mother and person," her note said. "I am so sorry I hurt you and if there was any other way, we would have done it.”

Lauria said that an Amber Alert was not issued in the case despite repeated requests because it did not meet the state’s criteria for issuing the alert. He said the fact that Lalinsky appeared to have gone voluntarily and her age of 15, rather than a younger teen or pre-teen, both prevented the alert from being issued.

Ben Freed is a business and general assignments reporter for The Ann Arbor News. Email him at benfreed@mlive.com and follow him on twitter at @BFreedinA2